Browsing Posts tagged Evolution

— Advocacy for Animals presents a piece, written originally for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, on an interesting hypothesis put forward by an eminent biologist that has implications for conservation and our relationship with the other life-forms with which we share the planet. We think our nature- and animal-loving readers will especially appreciate this article.

The biophilia hypothesis is the idea that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life.

“Promenade on the Cliff at Pourville,” by Claude Monet–The National Gallery of Scotland/Getty Images

The term biophilia was used by German-born American psychoanalyst Erich Fromm in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), which described biophilia as “the passionate love of life and of all that is alive.” The term was later used by American biologist Edward O. Wilson in his work Biophilia (1984), which proposed that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has, in part, a genetic basis.

The human relationship with nature

Anecdotal and qualitative evidence suggests that humans are innately attracted to nature. For example, the appearance of the natural world, with its rich diversity of shapes, colors, and life, is universally appreciated. This appreciation is often invoked as evidence of biophilia. The symbolic use of nature in human language, in idioms such as “blind as a bat” and “eager beaver,” and the pervasiveness of spiritual reverence for animals and nature in human cultures worldwide are other sources of evidence for biophilia.

Such spiritual experience and widespread affiliations with natural metaphors appear to be rooted in the evolutionary history of the human species, originating in eras when people lived in much closer contact with nature than most do today. Human divergence from the natural world appears to have occurred in parallel with technological developments, with advances in the 19th and 20th centuries having the most significant impact, fundamentally changing human interactions with nature. In its most literal sense, this separation was made possible by the construction of enclosed and relatively sterile spaces, from homes to workplaces to cars, in which modern humans were sheltered from the elements of nature and in which many, particularly people living in more-developed countries, now spend the majority of their time.

Some of the most powerful evidence for an innate connection between humans and nature comes from studies of biophobia (the fear of nature), in which measurable physiological responses are produced upon exposure to an object that is the source of fear, such as a snake or a spider. These responses are the result of evolution in a world in which humans were constantly vulnerable to predators, poisonous plants and animals, and natural phenomena such as thunder and lightning. Fear was a fundamental connection with nature that enabled survival, and, as a result, humans needed to maintain a close relationship with their environment, using sights and sounds as vital cues, particularly for fight-or-flight responses. continue reading…

If chickens had teeth, we’d all be in trouble. As indeed were many kinds of small proto-mammals back in the day, scurrying on the floors of silent jungles with ancestral birds in pursuit, a vision that could thrill only a fan of the Jurassic Park franchise.

Budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus)–Sebastian RItter

But chickens have no teeth today, which has led biologists to ponder the question of why not—and, of compelling interest, when? The answer to the matter of edentulism, as it’s called, lies back about 100 million years ago. That is when birds, according to scientists writing in the Dec. 12 issue of the journal Science, having diverged from the toothy theropod dinosaurs, lost the last traces of enameled teeth. They did so by losing the genetic ability to form dentin properly, with the six principal genes missing or in some way deprecated. (Interestingly, all six genes are gloriously abundant in the toothy American crocodile.) These findings result from the genomic typing of 48 bird species, a major advance given that not long ago only a few species had been so analyzed.

On that note, by the way, chickens and turkeys are closer to dinosaurs, genetically speaking, than are many other kinds of birds. A British-led researching team writing in the journal BMC Genomics reports that these birds shared more features in common with the ancestral theropods than do fast-evolving songbirds such as the zebra finch and budgerigar. That’s a nice bit of supporting evidence for Darwinian theories of evolution, and reason enough to look at all birds with a heightened appreciation for all they’ve been through. continue reading…

The classic story of animal domestication runs something like this: A wolf wanders into a fire circle, shares a meal with humans, and in time becomes a dog.

Skeleton of an aurochs (Bos primigenius), an extinct wild ox–AdstockRF

That dog encourages aurochs to remain close to humans, the better to become a cow over time. Darwinian theory, to raise that vastly oversimplified picture up a few levels, holds that domestication involves the careful intervention of humans, who isolate wild animals, select favorable traits, and breed them to produce such things as turkeys that are all breast and cats that are a splendor of fur.

That picture is now complicated by recent research done by Fiona Marshall, an anthropologist at Washington University, who holds that Neolithic herders were rather less rigorous in their program of domestication. Instead, large herbivores were managed rather than isolated, allowed to interbreed with their wild kin. The result was a diverse, genetically healthy population of livestock animals of many kinds—including, in this study, camels, alpacas, donkeys, cattle, and sheep. This is in sharp contrast with the genetically monocultural domestication practices of industrial livestock production.

— Same-sex behavior in nonhuman animals has been observed for years. Increasingly it has become the object of scientific research and analysis. Our special thanks to the Yale Science Magazine (YSM) for permission to republish this overview of the topic by Arash Fereydooni, which originally appeared in YSM on March 14, 2012.

Recent research has found that homosexual behavior in animals may be much more common than previously thought. Although Darwin’s theory of natural selection predicts an evolutionary disadvantage for animals that fail to pass along their traits through reproduction with the opposite sex, the validity of this part of his theory has been questioned with the discoveries of homosexual behavior in more than 10% of prevailing species throughout the world.

Currently, homosexual behavior has been documented in over 450 different animal species worldwide. For instance, observations indicate that Humboldt, King, Gentoo, and Adélie penguins of the same sex engage in “mating rituals like entwining their necks and vocalizing to one another.” In addition, male giraffes have also been observed engaging in homosexual behavior by rubbing their necks against each others’ bodies while ignoring the females. Yet another example is lizards of the genus Teiidae, which can copulate with both male and female mates.

Biologists Nathan W. Bailey and Marlene Zuk from the University of California, Riverside, have investigated the evolutionary consequences and implications of same-sex behavior, and their findings demonstrate benefits to what seems to be an evolutionary paradox. For example, their studies of the Laysan albatross show that female-female pairing can increase fitness by taking advantage of the excess of females and shortage of males in the population and provide superior care for offspring. Moreover, same-sex pairing in many species actually alleviates the likelihood of divorce and curtails the pressure on the opposite sex by allowing members to exhibit more flexibility to form partnerships, which in turn strengthens social bonds and reduces competition. Thus, not only do animals exhibit homosexuality, but the existence of this behavior is quite prevalent and may also confer certain evolutionary advantages.

To Learn More

“Can Animals Be Gay?,” a lengthy discussion of the topic by Jon Mooallem, in the New York Times Magazine, March 31, 2010.

Dogs evolved from wolves. German shepherds, Australian shepherds, French poodles, even Mexican chihuahuas all trace their lineage to Canis lupus. So close is their genetic relationship that, although the notion of subspecies is a matter of contention among taxonomists, the dog is considered a subset, of a kind, of the wolf, Canis lupus become Canis lupus familiaris.

How that happened is a matter of some discussion as well. In one model, Paleolithic human hunters developed a commensal relationship with the wolves around them, sharing their food in exchange for the wolves’ assistance in the hunt. In the feast-or-famine manner of hunting in those days, those human hunters, killing, say, an aurochs or a mastodon, would have left great quantities of meat on the ground, just the sort of thing to guarantee that wolves would follow in their wake; in time, so closely did the wolves follow that they came to share the camps and fires of Homo sapiens. Newly published studies of mitochondrial DNA suggest that this first occurred in Europe, although some scientists believe that China was the place of the earliest domestication.

A footnote to this model is the observation that it was likely not adult wolves that were domesticated, but instead young ones that were taken from the pack and brought to live among humans. Hunting peoples have been well known for adopting orphans—bears, seals, and the like—so this qualification makes good sense. continue reading…

"Service Animal" Scammers (New Yorker): An increasing number of your neighbors have been keeping company with their pets in human-only establishments simply by claiming that the creatures are their licensed companion animals and are necessary to their mental well-being.